BPM Excellence – Lifting the lid on the Value a CoE provides

Over the years the search for IT and/or Business ‘Excellence’ has led to a concept that is often misunderstood and can be very amorphous in definition and execution – Business/IT Transformation. The term also commonly used in the same context is that of a Centre of Excellence or ‘CoE’ aka ‘Competency Centre.’ In this post, I will not attempt to redefine either, but rather explain a bit more about how the various constituent parts of a CoE can support Transformation projects and more specifically Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives.

The purpose of a CoE is to act as a nucleus for promoting and managing the collaboration of people, processes and technologies around key organisational objectives by ensuring the application of best practices, education and training, support services and technology awareness.

In most organisations, this is an extremely complex challenge, especially if the level of organisational maturity is low and their existing operational model is disjointed. That said, more mature and integrated organisations find the exigency and necessary focus for adopting a CoE a challenge.

As already stated, a CoE performs many roles and as an enabler underpinning a foundation for continued improvement, in most cases, is not always a ‘once size fits all’ solution. Deciding on what functions it provides to the organisation and how these are created, implemented and provisioned to wider cross functional teams is therefore a key consideration in the early stages of planning.

Typical core functional areas that form part of any CoE include the following:

• Resource Management
• Skills Management
• Knowledge Management
• Standardisation and Reuse of Assets
• Development, Implementation and Governance of Standards and Frameworks
• Implementation Support and Advisory Services across the Software Development Lifecycle
• Marketing and Communications of the CoE Objectives and Values

The list is just an indication of some of the primary considerations, but to ensure that value is derived on an ongoing basis, a clear focus should be kept on when and how the CoE capabilities are implemented and evolved. Governance is therefore essential in ensuring a consistent alignment with the organisational objectives and BPM Adoption and Improvement Strategy.

In future posts I will discuss how organisational models can be combined with CoE capabilities (deployment patterns) to derive specific IT and Business value.